How to Pack Lighter When You Go Hiking and Camping

Finding ways to cut weight from your pack is an essential part of the pre-hike process. Lightening the load allows you to move faster in the backcountry and staves off fatigue as you carry your pack over longer distances. Still, it's hard to know what to leave behind. So if you find that your pack tends to be heavier than you would like, here are some tips to shed the extra pounds.

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Share the Load

If you are traveling with a partner or a group of friends, be sure to distribute the shared gear and supplies evenly with everyone. This includes food and water, as well as the various parts of your tent, cooking equipment, stove, and so on. This way, everyone adds just a little weight to each of their packs rather than having one or two people carrying far too much stuff. Cooperation is the name of the game, and everyone benefits.

Trim Down Your Wardrobe

One of the more common mistakes by beginner backpackers and adventure travelers is bringing far too much clothing. Remember, you don't need a clean outfit for every day you're on the trail and you can reuse most of your clothes multiple times. (It's the backcountry, not the country club—nobody cares if you re-wear clothes.) Invest in a good layering system with a couple of base layers, a mid-layer, and an outer shell. This will provide a high level of performance and versatility out of just a few items, vastly reducing the number of garments you'll need to pack. Contrary to popular belief, you won't need clean socks and underwear for every day of the trip either. Leave the extras at home, along with additional pairs of shoes, bulky jackets, and anything made out of cotton.

Get Out There

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Leave the Nonessentials at Home

This may sound like a no brainer, but it's worth mentioning. When you're packing your bag take time to consider whether each item is absolutely essential to your comfort and survival in the backcountry. If the answer is no, chances are you should leave it at home. That isn't to say that you can't bring a few luxury items along with you. Just pick the ones that are compact and don't add much bulk to your pack. For instance, leave flashlights and lanterns at home in favor of a good headlamp instead. Likewise, forget bringing that novel you've been reading, as a small tablet or e-reader makes a better substitute. And don't bring a Bluetooth speaker when a good pair of earbuds will work just as well.

Ditch the Tents Poles

An increasing number of tents and bivvies are eschewing traditional tent poles and giving backpackers the option of using their trekking poles instead. The rationale is that you can save a bit of pack weight since you're probably using trekking poles on the trail anyway, then once you're done hiking for the day you can put the poles to use in constructing your shelter. Items that can pull double-duty are always a good choice when looking to cut weight.

Repackage Food and Other Consumables

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Transfer your food and snacks from their original packaging, which is often large and bulky, into ziplock bags. This allows you to pack those items more easily and keeps them organized too. Other consumable items, such as sunscreen, insect repellents, and hand sanitizer, can be transferred into small, reusable plastic bottles that are much lighter than their original containers. On shorter trips you won't need much more than an ounce or two of each of those products, so bringing the whole bottle is just wasting space and weight.

Bringing the whole bottle is just wasting space and weight.

Upgrade Your Gear

Over the past few years, the outdoor gear industry has gone all-in on losing weight. That "lightweight" backpack, tent, and sleeping bag you bought just a few years ago is probably downright heavy by today's standards. Everything from the boots you wear to the stove you use to prepare meals to the water bottles you drink from have all gotten lighter. Yes, it's costly to replace all of that equipment. But slowly upgrading your gear over time will show dividends in terms of shaving pounds and ounces from your pack.

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Let Experience Be Your Guide

It's easy to overpack when you first start backpacking and camping because you don't always know what to expect when you hit the trail. As you gain more experience, you'll soon learn what works and what doesn't. Over time you'll start to leave the items you don't need at home and your pack will naturally get lighter. Learn to trust your instincts, and you'll discover that you can do without some of the things that seemed important at the beginning.

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